Anglo-Australian miner BHP (BHP.AX,BLT.L,BBL,BHP), formerly known as BHP Billiton, reported Tuesday higher attributable profit in its first half, while revenues were flat. Underlying EBITDA margin was lower. Further, the company maintained its dividend. Looking ahead, the company said its productivity for the 2019 financial year is now expected to be broadly flat largely reflecting the unplanned production outages at Olympic Dam, Western Australia Iron Ore, Spence and Nickel West.

The company expects a strong second half performance to offset the negative productivity movement in this period, bringing the overall movement to broadly flat for the full year, down from the previous guidance of $1 billion.

BHP Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Mackenzie said, "A strong second half is expected to partially offset the impacts from operational outages in the first half, with unit costs across our business forecast to improve."

For the half year ended December 31, 2018, attributable profit climbed 87 percent to $3.76 billion from last year's $2.02 billion. Basic earnings per share were 71.0 cents, up from 37.9 cents last year.

Profit after taxation from continuing operations attributable went up 117 percent to $4.06 billion.

In the December 2018 half year, BHP reported an exceptional loss of $210 million after tax in relation to the Samarco dam failure.